The myriad of technology devices in contemporary society allow anyone to access information at any time. Nonetheless, a vast amount of teenagers are oblivious to international events due to the habit of engaging in their own personal interests.
This lack of desire for an intellectual mind is an issue as it promotes a more narcissistic personality among teenagers.
Some of the lack of desire to keep current with the world’s events can be attributed to the entertainment distractions that the Internet provides. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook can be distracting to students by often providing news about what their friends are doing. Popular forms of media also focus on celebrities and the drama surrounding them.
With teenagers’ Facebook walls filled with mostly posts about social events, little room is left to think about more worldly issues. While keeping up with friends isn’t a problem, letting this completely distract one from events outside of the world can be.
Political and social struggles such as those in Ukraine, Venezuela, and other countries go unrecognized by many teenagers for long periods of time due to their use of technology mostly for entertainment purposes rather than sources of information.
Many websites and news organizations provide ways of easily gaining access to information regarding world events. No longer does one have to read the newspaper or listen to the radio to learn about the news. The technology of this age allows for information to be viewed with a mere click.
Acknowledging the world’s problems can often be sad and difficult for anyone to accept. However, students shouldn’t use this as an excuse to isolate themselves from this information. While reading about the world’s many problems can be depressing, ignoring the problems won’t solve them.
Some teenagers argue protests in a far away country do little to affect them. However, this style of thinking can be described as being self-centered. While struggles in another country may not directly influence someone, these struggles may indirectly influence them. For example, political, social, and economic struggles in Egypt could result in increased gas prices in the United States as a result of decreased imports.
The ease of access to technology and ways of receiving information provides very little excuse for teenagers to be so poorly educated on worldly topics.
News organizations, such as USA Today, have developed Apps so that their readers may keep up with the news on the go.
Solving this lack of worldly perspective isn’t difficult. Taking the time to acknowledge the existence of a community outside one’s own is all that it takes. The understanding that one, single individual is not the center of the universe is a very important step towards establishing a more connected and concerned international community.
As the next generation of problem solvers, it may be smart for teenagers to take a second glance at their phones before searching for cat memes on Instagram. Shifting their focus to global concerns or scholastic areas of the online world may be a less irrational use of time.
